Lars, the lead character in this novel, a one-time med-student, joined SS Germany in 1940 to fulfill his medical degree and then go fighting for his mother's land in Karelen Finland. By choosing Germany over England, he was never to come home, never to meet again with his grieving fiancée. He, considered a traitor to his country in 1945. The handsome Lars met with other women, came to love two of them deeply, but still couldn't stop tormenting himself for the betrayal to his fiancée up in Norway.
This novel portrays two families and the two grandchildren of the main character Lars, and who were to meet only long after the end of World War II.
The grandchild on the Ukrainian side, Theresa, came from the Opera house in Odessa, the city of culture by the BlackSea, up to 1940 known as the "Jew city" of East Europe. More than 1/3 of its inhabitants were said to be Jews at the time. The other grandchild, Junior worked as a GP up country in Hedemark, Norway. He took care of the family's two big farms as well.
Historians claim that maybe 100.000 of the Jews in greater Odessa oblast were exterminated by hanging, executions or even burnt alive during that war. Most of the atrocities, murders were carried out by Rumanians, partisans, the SS and not least by the Einsatzkommandoes, Hitlers dirty workers.